Daria's Life's Lottery
by Charles RocketBoy
Summary: Inspired by Kim Newman's Life's Lottery - Your name is Daria Morgendorffer. Throughout your life, you need to make choices; throughout your life, you are hit by random chance; throughout your life, a single change in luck, the right or wrong decision at a specific time, will change the course of your life. Choose Your Own Adventure...
1. Chapter 1

You're already lucky in life's lottery: your parents are both educated middle-class white people in the United States of America, in the second half of the 20th century. Your childhood won't be disrupted by war or plague (you're too young to be touched by the great pandemic of the 80s) and by being born in 1981, you ensure you're raised during a series of economic highs. The only risk is if your mother had complications during pregnancy-

[TAKE A DECK OF CARDS, WITH JOKERS INCLUDED. DRAW FIVE CARDS. IF YOU GOT EVERY SINGLE KING AND ONE JOKER, YOU ARE STILLBORN. GO TO 0.

[IF YOU DRAW ONLY CARDS IN THE ROYAL SUITE, YOU ARE BORN WITH A DISABILITY. GO TO 2]

-and if not, you are born Daria Morgendorffer. If you'd been born Darius or Cyrus Morgendorffer, you'd have a 50% chance of living a much better life solely by dint of being a white middle-class man. You'd be beaten up in school as a boy but you'll find it easier to succeed later in life with the intellect you've been genetically gifted.

You'd have a 2% chance that your father will be an abusive man, unable to know how to raise you differently to his own father and taking out his self-loathing on those around you. Try not to think about those odds. Hell, as a girl, you won't.

It's not for me to say if you get lucky again when your mother gets pregnant again while you're a toddler. There's a thousand thousand realities caused by this decision and most are good or bad depending on your point of view. Do you want to be the only child your mother focuses on?

Yeah, that scares you.

You grow up as an intelligent but withdrawn girl saddled with a vivacious, cuter sister. There was a 10% chance you could become less withdrawn during school, but this is the 90% – the vast majority of the 10%'s outcomes here would have been great but they're not for you. You only got four numbers on your card, not all seven. No jackpot. You still have financial security and parents who indulge you with books and the benefit of one of the top tier societies of your day. (Your parents once thought of moving to Sweden, which worked out great for you; they thought of moving to Yugoslavia in one fit of former student righteousness, and I can tell you no world exists where that leaves you alive after 1994.)

You grow up in Highland, Texas. It wasn't so bad when your parents moved there but has increasingly become a bit of a shithole by the late 80s. By the time your parents consider moving to Austin, there's too many roots – you only have a 20% chance of leaving Highland before you are sixteen. Your family still live in the nice part. You won't think much of it, but your house is far less likely to be robbed and you are far less likely to encounter the local gangs of bored, hungry youths. The closest you will get is Earl, who you'll meet at Junior High; life's lottery is not very good for Earl and the vast majority of outcomes see him descend into violence, but to you he's just that kid in class.

(If you'd been born male, you'd have a 10% chance of falling in with Earl's circle. If you want to see a likely outcome of that, GO TO 3.)

When you're thirteen, you and Quinn will be forced to go to Camp Grizzly in a faraway state. If you draw a card and it's the Two of Clubs, you will find out one day you were sent there because your parents were having marital troubles. There's a good chance the problems aren't papered over by the time you get back.

But we're looking at the most likely outcomes in this stream. It boils down to this: you hate summer camp. You really hate it. Your plan is to spend as much time as possible shirking it and reading the books you brought. You rapidly decide another plan is ignore Amelia as much as possible – the girl has latched on to you for reasons you are not old or wise enough to understand. She won't stop following you around and talking to you. Only books will save you now.

Nine days in, hiding out behind the huts, you've got a choice between reading _We All Fall Down_ (which you haven't started yet) or rereading _Brave New World_. You've always liked Richard Cormier's _The Chocolate War_ because it's bleak and says trying never gets you anywhere, but on the other hand it seems apt to read about people forced into a clique forever at this damned camp.

IF YOU READ "WE ALL FALL DOWN", GO TO 4.  
IF YOU READ "BRAVE NEW WORLD", GO TO 5


	2. Chapter 2

[2]

It's a few months before your parents ask the doctor what the hell is wrong and you're diagnosed with hemiplegia. Some people, that's not so bad. You will always need a cane to walk properly. You will always have to use your left side and while you were not born left-handed, you have to learn. You know from an early age that you'll always be Weird to your peers.

Your parents look around Highland and see it's never going to be adequate for a disabled girl. They move to Austin when you're three. As a girl who "walks funny" _and_ is a "four eyes" _and_ is an "egghead", you're pretty much screwed at school. None of your bullies go too far because Beating Up A Cripple is just Not Cool but you'll face constant, unending microaggression, medium-aggression, and patronising bastards.

When you're six, your parents risk another child and you get a sister, Quinn: she's smart too, has darker hair than you, needs glasses to read, but she can move right and she's popular at school. You love her and she loves you, but you don't really have much in common. Quinn's big into literature and writing, and while you like books too your passion is chemistry and, soon, engineering. The hard discipline appeals to you. THIS does THAT and leads to THIS, and you have to get it right. There's no wriggle room like literature has.

That leads you to the Science Club. "21 Jump Geek," a bully called it in a witless fit of wit-lacking. And so, when you're thirteen, you face a choice:

"Hey Daria, settle this for us: should we play D&D or Brian's Warhammer game?"

TO PLAY D&D, GO TO 6.  
TO PLAY WARHAMMER 40K, GO TO 7.


	3. Chapter 3

[3]  
Leroy looks at you like he's about to laugh. You've got your piece on him and he looks at you like he wants to laugh. Earl shot Leroy's sidekick in the head in front of the bastard and he looks at you like he wants to laugh.

"You can't be fucking serious."

"Jax, do you think I'm serious?" The corpse doesn't answer. "You're not helping. Earl, can you confirm if I'm serious?"

"Damn serious, Cy."

"And I think I'm serious. So that's two against one, and one abstain. Sorry Leroy, you've lost the vote."

"You're not gonna shoot," he sneers. "Todd's fucking paperpusher? My crew would come for you—"

"Leroy, do you know how much money you and Todd could have made if you'd cooperated? I do. Your crew does too." You let that sink in. "I'm prepared to be nice though. Tell me where your secret stash is, and you can leave town."

Take that deck and pull a card. If it's a joker, Leroy's going to draw and while you plug him, his wild shot hit an artery and you GO TO 0. If it's a spade, like the thing you dig holes with, Leroy will tell you – he thinks you won't shoot, dorky Cyrus Morgendorffer won't have the balls – but your scheme messes up, the cops realise what you did, and with George W Bush the governor you'll GO TO 0.

Any other suite, well. Leroy tells and you shoot him with Todd's gun. Jax's corpses vanishes and his old gun is used to shoot Todd, in his house, when he's drunk and the only witness is Gina from school – and you've got to Gina weeks ago. She'll get the cops chasing a dead man and you combine the two gangs into an efficient machine that owns every part of Highland the old mob doesn't want.

By the time you're a graduate – your parents will never understand why you went to community college – you own property across the county. When the Texas Rangers bust the old mob's daddy, a "Mexican gang" butchers sixteen mobsters and torch two businesses in one night of violence, and then you gradually move in and win over the disgruntled foot soldiers to your side.

Bar a few chance upsets (if you draw any 5's or 10's from the deck, you're in jail before you're forty and 6's mean GO TO 0), Cyrus Morgendorffer owns Highland.

AND SO ON.


	4. Chapter 4

[4]

You open _We All Fall Down_, knowing only that it's by the guy you like and the book involves a gang vandalising the lead's house.

It opens nasty. Cormier is blunt, savage in his description. The gang are cheering and they're shitting on the floor – and the book says that – and for all the wild abandon, some parts are clearly planned. It's cruel. The house is a little too close to yours. The gang attacks the lead's younger sister on page 2.

You've read dark stuff before. You like it. You've previously felt uncomfortable – Room 101 hollowed out your guts – and got through it. This is the first time you remember feeling like this from the start. Do you keep going?

TO STOP READING, GO TO 8  
TO KEEP READING, GO TO 9


	5. Chapter 5

[5]

You're deep into _Brave New World_ when Amelia finds you. You didn't hear or see her coming, so she just appears like the ghost in _The Signalman_.

"Hi Daria! Oh, is that _Brave New World_?"

"Oh damn, is that what this is? I wondered why Nancy Drew was taking so long to show up."

"Have you read it before? I've read it before. The other kids, they're—" You assume Amelia's looking around to make sure you're alone. "_Gammas_, right?"

Oh hell. Not even books can save you.

IF YOU IGNORE AMELIA, GO TO 10  
IF YOU RELUCTANTLY ENGAGE, GO TO 11


	6. Chapter 6

[6]

It's the last of the great Geek Street game sessions, not that you all know it yet. Six of you around a table (Brian's at work, Jesus stuck with family) playing the Tomb. And you're the Dungeon Master. You already have taken out the Cleric and the Thief. The remaining three are screwed.

You got to grips with the game five years ago and only got better. There's an order to it. There's an order to anything, if you look for it. You just have to struggle.

And there's something you're waiting to say. Something that – because you're you – you save until your friends seem to be getting their act together. Can't have that.

"So, er, I got my college letters back today. I rolled a fat 20 at Bromwell."

Everyone stares at you. Maricella is the first one to smile.

"And you kept bitching that 'oh it was never gonna work'! Screw you, D, of course it was going to work! You're the Picard of chemistry!"

"The _Sisko_."

"Picard would've stopped the Dominion in two episodes."

"_Next Generation_ would've ended _Babylon 5_ in two episodes."

"So you agree it's great."

You and your friend high five, ignoring the protests from the resident B5 fans. Maricella and you have been arguing Picard-vs-Sisko since Sisko thumped Q. (You never liked the Q eps) _Deep Space 9_ was even better than _Quantum Leap_. Now you've only got _Farscape_ and _SG-1_, and you're keeping to the repeats of better old things.

Johnny, the Cleric-that-was, raises a reedy hand. "So you're not gonna be back very often?"

That's a point. Everyone else in the crew is going to college but you're going the furthest. You're in Massachusetts. No chance of getting a Greyhound on the weekend to play a quick game. Maricella is at Caltech. The whole continent will stretch between you.

You knew this but it didn't properly hit before. Now you wish Bromwell had rejected you. You had an offer from Caltech as well. If you'd – no. No, Maricella would think it unforgiveable if you gave up this big an opportunity to stay near her.

"We'll just have to run a lot of MUDs," you say, trying to sound upbeat – always a challenge. "Maybe being able to outtype me will mean you win. Maybe."

The game carries on into the night. There's one more with the whole gang after graduation. The whole future stretches ahead of you. When you'd been trying to hobble fast to get across the playground, when it seemed impossible to write your own name, you'd have never expected this. A degree in Chemistry from Bromwell. All your graft, all of the rules you learned, has paid off.

Take that deck of cards and if you draw the 1 to 5 of hearts, the financial crash in 2007 will not just doom your father's job but delay your own start in the field – all while you have to pay your loans back. Those debts last for an age. You have to move to a cheaper area and have less contacts. You will still make it in your field but will forever wonder if you could have done better. AND SO ON.

Any other card except a Queen – rejoice! Your father loses his job in 2007 but you get work early – your grades and alma mater tell. You pay those loans back as you progress fast up the corporate ladder, becoming the key player in a drug company's lab. The money is incredible. In all the various mini-outcomes of this, you will be a success and your only regret is you don't have time to play D&D. When Gygax dies, you wear a black armband to work. AND SO ON.

If you got a Queen – you decided to move home briefly before looking for jobs and the Austin Police Department catches your eye with a job in Forensics. It's not a job that allows you to pay off your loans fast. It's not a job that allows you to always sleep well at night. It is a job that allows to enforce a sense of order on the world, make those rules you assumed existed _be_. Over time, hundreds of criminals are caught that otherwise would not have been and hundreds of innocent people are cleared. You introduce D&D to your co-workers. You have a son late and watch him join the Texas Rangers to be like you. AND SO ON.


	7. Chapter 7

[7]

Painting a figure with hemiplegia is a science, rather than an art. 40K has rules, and lore, and skill, but it's the figures that truly makes it for you. It can take you hours. It requires exacting patience.

And you_ crush_ it.

The rest of the "Geek Street" team prefer D&D, so it was just you and Brian playing until, to your amazement, it turned out one of the football team liked it. Dean Ackles is a hulking slab of beef in a crewcut and nobody would think he likes nerd stuff, and he's adamant he does not. He likes _Warhammer 40K_. It's full of guns and cool shit.

You still hang out with the "Geek Street", especially Maricella – sisters have to stick together in nerd circles – but you've now got your walking stick in more popular circles. If Mean Dean says Brian and Daria are half-cool, shit, they can come to the party then. You usually don't because nothing about them interests you but it still makes you someone people talk to.

Some of the populars are actually smart. Some of them actually do like nerd shit – you found out _the quarterback writes Quantum Leap fanfiction_. You have something to talk to the quarterback about and you'd never have thought that. (You sold him on the 40K books)

There's some other secrets too. One of them, well, this is still too Texas to say. You won a lottery here but not too big. Not in 2001's southern states.

"You got into Caltech? That's _great_!" Joanie Chu is one of the second-tier cheerleaders, a Duchess Bee, beloved around the school and someone any straight male wants. And it won't be for another few years she'll come out. "Now how do we rig it so we share a room?"

"Good question." You don't look at her because you're busy on that figure. You're painting the Imperial Guard to look half-like Aeryn Sun from _Farscape_. You learned about Joanie the week after you learned she was a 'Scaper too. It was another week before you realised you were bi. "There's a lot of other students in the equation. We need to reduce the numbers slightly. Sarin gas on the first day seems easiest."

"Don't be weird, D." Draw any card but a Heart, that morbid sense of humour is one reason you two break up within two years. "Jeez. Once we're past the exams, we're at college. My parents never went, y'know? My brother was the first. They cried."

"Don't worry, we'll find the students are inept, the faculty obsessed with funding, and corruption reigns." And the hair is done. Face is all that's left. "Still, with Caltech's programs, I'm even willing to stomach being around California."

You say this constantly when you're in California but in 99% of all outcomes, you never leave. AND SO ON.


	8. Chapter 8

[8]

Not reading anymore means you got to hear Amelia coming and made yourself scarce. This is how it goes for the rest of the camp.

In Highland, you move on to high school and your growing interest in boys is obliterated on day one by Butt-head farting in front of you. Literally, he's in front of you. It stinks.

Still, Beavis and Butt-head are the main point of interest at high school. This sort of stupidity is beyond your usual comprehension. Everything bad and gross about the 90s forced into two people. They're great to mess with. You keep finding reasons to run into them so you can snark.

Deep down, let's be honest, you envy them for having someone to hang with. Butt-head is a truly toxic individual but Beavis, the poor sucker, hangs out with him anyway. So what does that say for you?

If you shuffle those cards and draw a Joker, GO TO 13.

Eventually your mother gets a new job in a new town up in Maryland – better paying, better area, better chances for (whisper it) your dad's business to find any clients. It's a promised land. It's a boorish, too-clean suburb where all the ethnic minorities seem to have been rounded up in the night.

To your dull surprise, your jokes get you put in the self-esteem class. Mr O'Neill himself seems to have no self-esteem. And no brain. And no balls.

The girl behind you tells you O'Neill is just reciting his textbook and you should ignore him. She offers to fill you in on what you miss – she's done this class seven times. This is the first time in years anyone's talked to you without malice or pity or being Amelia.

Something inside you stands to attention.

TO TALK TO JANE, GO TO 12.  
TO NOT, GO TO 14.


	9. Chapter 9

[9]

You're digging deep into the book when Amelia finds you. You didn't hear or see her coming, so she just appears like the ghost in _The Signalman_.

"Hi Daria! Oh, what book is that?"

You could ignore her but you could with a break. "It's the heartwarming tale of a gang who trash a girl's house and she's very miserable and nothing nice happens. Richard Cormier is a cheerful man. I can't wait for his magnum opus, How I Got Cancer During The Holocaust."

"Oh." Amelia looks a bit flustered. "I, uh, um. I don't… I don't really like Cormier."

"Quinn said that too, before I got her one for her birthday." You smile. "That was a fun day."

"I can't believe you took that horse and rode off without us!" gushes Amelia – clearly, you notice, changing the subject.

"I didn't. It bolted. That's why I needed the stitches."

"Oh." A long, long silence develops and Amelia starts to scratch herself absentmindedly. "Are you happy?"

Well. This is a new reason to avoid Amelia. "Do I look happy?"

"I'm not happy."

You start to feel a discomfort you can't put into words. There's a dark cloud coming and you don't know what it's going to unleash, if anything. "Amelia—"

"The other girls, the boys, Quinn pick on me. I know they do. And it's still better than home, really, none of them have called me a dyke yet." She's scratching herself hard here. "They don't stop. I try to, to _keep my head down_, like my brother says, it keeps happening, I go along with things I don't want to do and nothing changes, and and and I think I might _be_ gay and I don't know if people can see that, or if they don't know but if they do—"

"Amelia—"

"That, that book, I have read it before, I had to stop, I—" She takes a big gulp of breath and you really, really want to run before she can speak again. "I kept thinking of kids at school doing it to my house, they would if they thought about it, they might, and I thought of doing it to them, and I thought I'd feel good thinking of that but I wanted to throw up after, and and and—"

SAY SOMETHING – GO TO 15  
SAY NOTHING – GO TO 16


	10. Chapter 10

[10]

"Why don't you like me?" asks Amelia, quiet.

"Because you're annoying," you say.

Amelia says a bunch of things but they're all mixed up, and frankly you're too young and callow to care. When she runs off crying, in the righteousness of a 13-year-old you think it serves her right for bothering you. Nobody likes you either but you don't crawl around them.

For the rest of the camp, a withdrawn Amelia avoids you. You don't notice because you don't care.

In Highland, you move on to high school and your growing interest in boys is obliterated on day one by Butt-head farting in front of you. Literally, he's in front of you. It stinks.

Still, Beavis and Butt-head are the main point of interest at high school. This sort of stupidity is beyond your usual comprehension. Everything bad and gross about the 90s forced into two people. They're great to mess with when you're forced together. Otherwise, you ignore them like you ignore everyone else.

If you shuffle those cards and draw a Joker, GO TO 13.

Eventually your mother gets a new job in a new town up in Maryland – better paying, better area, better chances for (whisper it) your dad's business to find any clients. It's a promised land. It's a boorish, too-clean suburb where all the ethnic minorities seem to have been rounded up in the night.

To your dull surprise, your jokes get you put in the self-esteem class. Mr O'Neill himself seems to have no self-esteem. And no brain. And no balls.

You ignore him and wait for the class to go away.

After you fail the test, your parents take you to a private psychiatrist and you answer a few boring questions and your parents hug you after because there is something wrong. Deep inside, without anyone really noticing, something's… off.

You snark about it and it's desperate, the jokes are terrible, because Dr Millepieds is clearly not a quack or a hack or a bad teacher with no balls. This is a smart man who knows his shit.

Quinn hugs you that night and that's the scariest thing of all. You push her off in fear. You think: No, no, this is all a mistake. Quinn thinking this means it can't be true.

IF YOU REBEL, GO TO 17.

IF YOU COOPERATE, GO TO 18.


	11. Chapter 11

[11]

"I wouldn't want to be a Gamma," you say. "All those friends are too complicated. I much rather being an Omega and not having to get birthday cards."

Amelia giggles. "I wish I could go to Iceland instead of here."

"You fool. Iceland in the book is full of people. It would become like here. You'd get all the rebels divided into cliques and picking on the uncool rebels, which is also how Communism never works. That and all those CIA murders."

After a few more minutes, you can bodge an exit. Amelia will keep trying to talk to you for the rest of camp and sometimes, you're stuck with her.

In Highland, you move on to high school and your growing interest in boys is obliterated on day one by Butt-head farting in front of you. Literally, he's in front of you. It stinks.

Still, Beavis and Butt-head are the main point of interest at high school. This sort of stupidity is beyond your usual comprehension. Everything bad and gross about the 90s forced into two people. They're great to mess with. You keep finding reasons to run into them so you can snark.

Deep down, let's be honest, you envy them for having someone to hang with. Butt-head is a truly toxic individual but Beavis, the poor sucker, hangs out with him anyway and seems to like him. If they can do that, why can't you?

So sometimes you talk to Martin or Cassandra. It's unsatisfying: you don't have much in common with them at all. Your moods are too different, your interests don't quite mesh. But they're it. They're all you get. You end up talking to Earl more – he's actually easier to deal with. His humour is just like yours. TO HANG OUT WITH EARL MORE, GO TO 19.

If you shuffle those cards and draw a Joker, GO TO 13.

Eventually your mother gets a new job in a new town up in Maryland – better paying, better area, better chances for (whisper it) your dad's business to find any clients. It's a promised land. It's a boorish, too-clean suburb where all the ethnic minorities seem to have been rounded up in the night.

To your dull surprise, your jokes get you put in the self-esteem class. Mr O'Neill himself seems to have no self-esteem. And no brain. And no balls.

The girl behind you tells you O'Neill is just reciting his textbook and you should ignore him. She offers to fill you in on what you miss – she's done this class seven times. This is the first time in years anyone's talked to you without malice or pity and, holy damn, actually seems on your wavelength. Nobody's ever been on your wavelength before.

Be honest, you expected only a mortician would manage that.

You'll make casual friends with some other kids – Jodie, Andrea, Ted – but it's Jane who will be your closest friend.

(Reach into that deck of cards and if you draw an even number, GO TO 20)

It's mildly annoying when Quinn starts becoming "a brain" just by being a bit less vapid and wearing black, and you kind of want to make her stop, but your friends all convince you to let it go. When the Three J's beg you to get Quinn to stop, you ignore them.

Quinn eventually stops as the latest shiny thing enters her head but by that point, the Fashion Club has collapsed – your sister was the lynchpin that kept them popular. You're aware from Quinn and Jodie that Sandi is plummeting in popularity (NAHHHH!) and Tiffany has wandered off, while Stacy still latches on to Quinn and gives you a bit of the creeps to be honest. She's a better dressed Amelia.

One day, Quinn is running the school dance committee and Ted & Jodie are part of it, begging you and Jane to help. A dilemma: this sounds stupid but they are friends. By now it's clear you have to do stuff for friends. What to do?

IF YOU HELP, GO TO 21  
IF YOU DON'T, GO TO 22


	12. Chapter 12

[12]  
You've never had a friend before. You weren't sure you ever would.

You even inherit your first real crush on Jane's brother, who's a lazy bum but boy is he hot.

School sucks but with Jane, it sucks less than you feared. You need no one else (go away Jodie). You drift through the days on black humour and pizza and dodgy TV. Nothing gets in the way for very long.

One day you have a top way to bust on Quinn: video footage for a class project that shows her as a total doof. Quinn, almost like she's deliberately prepared a guilt trip, makes you think 'should I do this'.

TO GO AHEAD, GO TO 23  
TO WIMP OUT, GO TO 41


	13. Chapter 13

[13]

You will never know how the X5 virus got out.

You will never know how the plague is finally stopped.

You're at ground zero. You found yourself sneezing up blood one day and pass out.

You will not be found until the CDC come for samples and it wouldn't have mattered if you were.

It takes twenty minutes of pain before you GO TO 0.


	14. Chapter 14

[14]  
You idiot. This was your big chance and you blew it – you think you'll talk to anyone after that? I can tell you there's a 10% chance of it, a 10% chance you talk to Jane herself later, but you know what that means? Four out of every five rolls of the dice are you sitting at home watching the TV every night of your young life.

This is it for you, you'll never truly get out of apathy and boredom even if you do eventually talk to people. You'll never do well in your job because you don't have the skills. You've made yourself boring.

Damn well GO TO 12 and talk to Jane. If not, GO TO 0 for all I care. There's nothing for you. Hell, a quarter of all outcomes at this point end up at 0 early.

Oh, you want to gamble? You want a wild chance? Okay. Okay, take that pack of cards and drew the seven of clubs. You can GO TO 28 then. Better hope you drew it. It's your last chance.


	15. Chapter 15

[15]

"Should I get Mr Potts?" you ask. It's all you can think of.

When Amelia looks ashamed and stutters and makes an excuse to leave, you realise that was the wrong thing to say. That what she'd heard was: go away, give this problem to someone else.

Whenever you try to talk to her again, she looks down and makes excuses. You've made a hash of it and I could say not to blame yourself, you were only thirteen, but you don't know what you don't know.

You become more withdrawn after this. I mean, shit, you kept looking down on Quinn but she knows how to talk to people. You? You should stay away, surely. You don't know what the hell you're doing. When Mrs Dickie makes you work with Beavis and Butt-head to get them to learn something, you bottle it hard: the science report is a total mess because you let them do most of the work.

They think you're "cool" for letting them work on an experiment about fire. You feel ashamed you feel good about that, and you envy the degenerate idiots for having someone to hang with, and you loathe Butt-head for being so toxic and getting away with it.

If things weren't bad enough, if you shuffle those cards and draw a Joker, GO TO 13.

Unknown to you, your mother got the chance to move to Lawndale, Maryland. She turns it down because she's worried you'll be unable to handle the move – instead, she focuses on getting you a local therapist. Dr Cervantes starts trying to slowly coax you out of your insecurity and low esteem. On your fourth session you talk about Amelia and while Cervantes tells you it's not your fault, you don't really believe her.

Your parents also team up with Van Driessen to get you involved in more things: the school paper, the science club, the poetry club the teacher really wishes people would go to. Slowly, very slowly, you start to talk more to other kids like Martin and Cassandra. Your old sarcasm starts to creep back in, a way to convince people you're fine rather than to disrupt them.

In your third year of high school, after months of fluctuating incomes and sudden spending cuts and Quinn actually learning not to complain about a low clothes budget, your dad winds up his consulting business and gets a junior role at a nearby dotcom. You can sense this has caused stress in your parent's marriage and worry they're staying together for you and Quinn – aren't you glad you don't know they stayed in Highland for you?

Take that card deck. If you draw a spade, TexMarketDotcom lucks out as part of the dotcom boom and you GO TO 24. If you don't, this never happens and you GO TO 25.


	16. Chapter 16

[16]

You had no idea what to say but it turns out Amelia has a lot. All the poison in the mud comes out.

You end up having to hug her. It's really uncomfortable. Amelia was just some annoying person and now Jesus Christ in Heaven, you've started to feel protective of her because this girl is a mess. Why did you not realise this before? She looked up to you. Who would do that?

Later, you'll threaten Quinn into stopping any messing with Amelia and to make sure nobody else does. Here, now, you awkwardly pat the girl on the back.

"How do you stay so strong?" she asks, but it's a bit more blubbery than that.

There's a good question. "I don't care about people." You hadn't meant to say that. "They're usually idiots. I'm _better_ than them."

"I wish I was."

"You are. You don't pick on anyone. You've read this book – that's not for idiots. If you can actually spell the President's first name, that puts you three up on most of the pissants you know at school."

Later that day, Amelia tells Skip a pissant and to shove off. You agree (though you quote Shakespearean insults because it sure was fun doing it to a teacher). This briefly makes you, to Quinn's horror, the most popular kids at camp.

You stay in touch with Amelia when you return to Highland – letters and phone calls and someday emails, as she navigates through school and Being More Daria.

In Highland, you move on to high school and your growing interest in boys is obliterated on day one by Butt-head farting in front of you. Literally, he's in front of you. It stinks. Maybe Amelia's got a point.

You really loathe Butt-head. Sure, Beavis is everything dumb and gross about the 90s forced into a human vessel, but Butt-head's truly toxic and keeps picking on his alleged "friend". Beavis doesn't seem to get it.

One day, when you hear Butt-head insulting Beavis, you tap him lightly on the shoulder and say: "You will die alone, unmourned, and unloved, and the worst thing for you is you'll never score."

"Heheheh she dissed you good, Butt-head!"

"Uhh, shut up Diarh—"

"Lay off Beavis or else. I mean it."

Obviously, he does not. You start to get Beavis alone and quietly talk him through how Butt-head treats him – it takes a lot but you eventually get through to him. Near the end of your first year, you see Beavis punch Butt-head and yell "I wasn't crying, fartknocker!". And that seems to be that. Away from Butt-head, Beavis is still obnoxious and dumb but no longer drawn into being destructive. You assume this will help. He seems happy enough anyway.

Eventually your mother gets a new job in a new town up in Maryland – better paying, better area, better chances for (whisper it) your dad's business to find any clients. It's a promised land. It's a boorish, too-clean suburb where all the ethnic minorities seem to have been rounded up in the night. School has some interesting idiots and a screaming ragebeast teacher, so that's cool.

Your mum keeps trying to steer you into having a "real friend" as she once accidentally implied Amelia was not. That didn't go well. You do end up on friendly terms with Jane Lane, who turns out to have your sense of humour. Amelia tells you Jane sounds cool – she's got some friends in high school too, kids who like D&D and Warhammer 40,000 (Amelia prefers "40K"). In some uncomfortable letters, she talks about a crush. You haven't got a problem with Amelia being gay but you sure have a problem with feelings.

Jane introduces you to her brother. Ooof. Now you've got some feelings. And when you first meet his on-off ex Monique, you get some more. You're asking Amelia for advice on that – there's a weird feeling – when cousin Erin gets married. Your mother, desperate to force you into human contact and equally desperate, you're sure, to 'contain' you, asks if you want to bring your friend Jane.

IF YOU BRING JANE, GO TO 26  
IF YOU WANT TO PUSH FOR AMELIA, GO TO 27


	17. Chapter 17

[17]

Your parents had irregularly pushed you to do things but now they push _hard_. It's a constant fight to get out of all the classes and clubs and jobs and trips they do to get you to open up, and soon enough it's clear this is a retaliatory action for you refusing to cooperate with the doctor. The battle of wits between you and your mother goes toxic. You start slipping off to the Zon just to get away.

Quinn is pretty much left to her own devices. Her grades tank. Your parents belatedly try to do something and force a tutor on her – and then the worst thing of all happens.

Quinn starts to do well academically.

You? Your grades are slipping. You're fighting back too much to focus on them. At this point, Quinn's gonna be outdoing you by your third year in high school.

Right now you're on a death spiral. You're out of control. Take that card deck: if you have an odd-numbered red card, GO TO 29.

Otherwise, GO TO 30. Good luck.


	18. Chapter 18

[18]

Your mother talks you into extracurricular activities and, until your eyes burn up, manages to talk you into contacts. In the circumstances, you put up with it.

Dr Millipieds eventually talks you into pushing back – your mother is trying to help, sure, but this does _not_ help you unless you want to do these things. Recovery can't be rushed.

It takes six months of constant therapy and long, difficult conversations and bad memories (a cardboard box will briefly trigger you) to get to that point. Kids at school now talk to you. Some of them are vicious bastards who sense weakness, but a few others are nice. None you could easily call "friend" but you're not alone.

You never really interact with Jane because, at this point, you are not the sort of person she'd reach out to and you wouldn't to her.

Jodie is someone who reaches out to you as you keep seeing her over and over, and you end up falling in with her. Over time she becomes a friend. Your parents must become friendly with her parents and it is hi-_lar_-ious to watch. Brittany comes with Jodie and you're burying your darker, morbid side so you find yourself unable to bust on her, for fear of upsetting Jodie. (If only you knew, eh?)

By Senior year, everyone at school has grown to see you as Good Ol' Daria – she's a brain but a helpful nice one that's Honorary Cool, she doesn't look down on anyone! But you really do – you keep wanting to insult and bust on everyone around you, but you're in too deep. You have a midnight life as a notorious internet troll and another midnight life as a writer on _Musings_, writing deeply cutting social satire. Kevin and Brittany are your Scylla and Charybdis. Behind Jodie's back, you've have some brutal discussions with Mack. He knows the score.

When Jodie's parents push her to Crestmore, she starts to encourage you. You're the only other person she knows who could get there and she could do with a friend. Well, shit, you do like Jodie. Why not apply? What's the worst that can happen?

Take that deck. If you draw a Diamond, GO TO 31. Any other suit, GO TO 32.


	19. Chapter 19

[19]

Leroy wanted to send a message.

He couldn't touch any girl Todd was with and he couldn't jump a goon that might fight back. Deep down, Leroy is a coward. The message had to be to one of Todd's men, who couldn't order retaliation, and it had to be to a 'soft' target, and you despise him for his reasons even more than for what he's done to you.

Everyone thinks you and Earl date. You never picked up the courage to ask. Would it be better or worse if you had? At least you'd have that. Maybe you'd have lost your virginity before. This wouldn't be the first.

You know people feel shame when this happens. They blame themselves. They don't want it to be known. You feel rage. Nothing but rage. You _make yourself_ feel it. How dare he. How dare he do it as a coward. Worthless fucking reason.

Leroy took a photo to send to Earl as a warning. You're pretty sure he'll post it.

In rage, you want Earl to retaliate with all the blood and thunder he can. You want to join him. You want Leroy dead, the sin wiped out. You want him to see you're not the fucking coward.

And deep within the rage, a cold voice whispers that if the photo wasn't seen, if nobody knew – you can cover it up, nobody saw, the photo is all the evidence – then Leroy has achieved nothing. He'll have nothing.

IF YOU LET EARL KNOW, GO TO 33  
IF YOU DON'T, GO TO 34


	20. Chapter 20

[20]

Your mother always took her cell phone with her on trips but this time, the one time that it would be justified, she did not.

By the time you reach the paintball course, your feet blistered to Hell, you've known for an hour it's too late. It doesn't hurt as bad when the ambulance crew find your family dead because you'd already grieved and screamed about it.

Everything had been going great in Lawndale, by your standards, and all it took was a single trip – a single meal, _berries_ of all things – and it's all taken away. Lawndale is taken away because hell, Aunt Rita's not moving just to take care of you. Jane is a daily pen pal but it's not the same. Cousin Erin isn't enough like Quinn. There's too many 'Dad's' in the family.

Erin actually talks to you more than Aunt Rita, who never quite seems sure how to talk to you – the fact you're getting increasingly morbid and withdrawn doesn't help. One time she calls you Amy by mistake, but you've met Aunt Amy and she didn't get you either. But Erin keeps coming round, takes you out on trips to museums (which you eventually start noticing she enjoys but is covering up). And there's Lurhman, one of Erin's friend's brothers. He's definitely on your wavelength. He talks like you feel. Even Jane wasn't this into it.

TO REACH OUT TO ERIN, GO TO 35.  
TO REACH OUT TO LURHMAN, GO TO 36.


	21. Chapter 21

[21]

"And nothing says 'help' like a horrific car crash," you tell your sister and Jodie.

"It's what Pollock would've wanted," says Jane. "Help, I mean."

"At least the blood would form a Pollock painting."

Quinn would complain more but it turns out the rest of your school think the decorations are "cool". Jodie sees the funny side in the end. With your work done, you and Jane veg out watching the dancers (Quinn's making a circuit of all the guys).

Soon enough, you see two guys watching _you_. Two sarcastic, misanthropic, hot guys. Two guys who carry the dreaded Ruttheimer gene. Well, Jane wants to run for the hills but what the hell. Nobody's perfect.

Brett and you keep talking and Cumberland High seems to be full of just as many interesting idiots as Lawndale. There's even a dance party there next week, a 'school pride' event that Brett and Brad plan to "do an elaborate tribute to _Carrie_" at.

Weeee-eeell...

IF YOU WANT TO GO WITH BRETT, GO TO 37  
IF YOU THINK THIS SOUNDS LIKE A BAD IDEA, GO TO 38


	22. Chapter 22

[22]

School drifts along with friends, bad TV, and amusing idiots. Sometimes you even learn stuff.

Jane briefly has a proper boyfriend in Tom, who stays sort-of in touch after they break up. The breakup's a bit crap to watch but Jane seemed happier when it was working out. You'd like some of that. Problem is, it'd mean talking to a guy and yeah no. Maybe if one showed up.

(You are really bemused when Quinn starts to genuinely do better academically. What's going on there?)

In your senior year, you run into Nathan while looking for a present for Jane at the thrift shop. Nathan dresses old, has weird hobbies, and seems like it'd be amusing to follow him around. And he's more-or-less attractive, not quite how Trent looked but close enough. And he's clearly interested in you, or your clothes anyway.

Dilemma.

TO GO OUT WITH NATHAN, GO TO 39  
IF YOU THINK HE'S NOT QUITE YOUR TYPE, GO TO 40


	23. Chapter 23

[23]

It's the greatest busting on Quinn you ever did pull off. For days, she's protesting "MY PORES ARE CUTE!" to all and sundry, and Sandi is smugger than a Sandi stuck to another Sandi.

A while later, Mystik Spiral and Jane get a night in the cells at some hick town and need you to drive out to them. You spend painstakingly slow, terrified hours navigating the traffic; get lost; make it there in time to learn the Spiral left yesterday; get home in time to see enraged parents have returned early. And that's you grounded for two months.

In that time, Jane makes a boyfriend and that gets you pissy – you can't even meet the sucker. You do a class assignment into finances together and it almost comes to blows before you're forced to unite against an irritating car salesman.

You're still grounded when O'Neill does his "Call of the Wild" trip. Later on, you'll think the absent God that you were grounded. The kids that went come back talking about a blizzard but Mr DeMartino does not. Everyone who comes back is hit with the realisation that, yes, it wasn't a fun diversion that was annoying, they could have died. Kevin corners you at school in tears, asking your advice as he did with Tommy Sherman, needing confirmation there was no way he could have saved "Mr D" (who, in a world-shattering revelation, you learn was his favourite teacher).

The investigation eats Lawndale High alive – O'Neill and Li are fired for gross negligence and incompetence, and later Li is arrested trying to flee to another state with a large sack of money. The sack had "$" on it and everything. The homecoming parade is cancelled as the school gets a good hard clean and Barch, the most senior teacher standing, is made Principal. First thing she does is force the football team to study, which obliterates their winning streak and the town is in an even bigger uproar about that.

You try to drift along as normal with Jane but that's getting really difficult as everything seems to be falling to bits. You even feel bad when Tom and Jane break up, and you barely even met the guy.

Quinn, that's the weird one as she goes from Guardian Angels to the Cliff Notes version of evangelist that still allows her to covet thy neighbour's oxen & thy friend's boyfriend's ass. She needs structure.

Your dad sets the damn house on fire at the same time the PTA forces Barch out and someone who _certainly isn't Barch_ leaks a shit ton of info on what the football team were allowed to get away with to the press. The local papers quietly bury the story because Football but the TV networks don't.

That summer, your mother asks if you wouldn't rather go to Grove Hills after all – just in case.

TO TRY GROVE HILLS, GO TO 42  
TO STAY AT LAWNDALE, GO TO 43


	24. Chapter 24

[24]

For two glorious months, your family could move to a bigger home, they could buy Quinn almost all the clothes she wanted, and college expenses were no option.

The bubble burst in your fourth year of school. Half the wealth vanished overnight. The new mortgage did not.

Your parent's marriage becomes a zombie. They aren't arguing now, they've just given up. Your dad knows he messed up by not cashing in enough of his shares. Your mum knows she messed up by not looking the gift horse in the mouth.

There's still enough saved and hidden away to send you to college, if you work during it and can get a loan of your own. (Quinn never got the grades for it so she won't be following) With your family in the state they are, you work your damn ass off at college in Austin: you need to justify to yourself the cash they gave to you. You need to prove to Quinn, bitter about losing the new house, that you deserved it.

All the slow progress you'd made slips away as you avoid social interaction in favour of grinding.

I'm afraid things are out of your control now.

If you draw a spade, you're going to die – suicide or accident or, in a desperate attempt to keep working, drugs. You GO TO 0. If you draw a heart, you have a nervous breakdown and fall out of college, unable to return and living with your mother for years as you slowly build yourself back up to working a 9-to-5 dead end job, Quinn never speaking to you except at funerals.

If you draw a club, you drink one day in an attempt to de-stress and it helps. You get a high grade in Biological Sciences & Chemistry and move into a job. You also end up with addiction that will run throughout your life until you GO TO 0. Well, it could be worse.

If you draw a diamond, you get that grade and you're still intact at the end. You even see a job in Forensics for the Austin Police Department soon after graduating – now you have a choice again. Do you apply or go home for a bit?

TO APPLY, GO TO 45  
TO GO HOME, GO TO 46


	25. Chapter 25

[25]

When the dotcom bubbles burst, TexMarketDotcom gradually goes down but your dad had already moved on by then. You and Quinn (and your parents) wish the firm had managed to make megabucks before the bubble, and you'll never know how dumb a wish that is.

By the end of high school, you're together and ready to move on. As well as Austin and Caltech, you think big and put down Raft, in Massachusetts. Why not?

Guess what college just offered you a place.

TO GO TO RAFT, GO TO 47  
TO GO TO CALTECH, GO TO 48


	26. Chapter 26

[26]

Watching Erin's wedding descend into fire, blood, and anguish provides you and Jane with material enough for _years_.

Together you're a holy terror. Your constant jabs at Principal Li and all her minions – the track team especially – earns you no friends and many enemies from students to teachers, but you have a lawyer in the family and neither of you care about total social isolation. DeMartino loves you and starts giving you secret assistance as you rules-lawyer the school, Jane flubs a track meet to crater the whole team, certain local media get little tips…

Early next year, Kevin flunks some classes – the rumours of byes mean OH DEAR HE CAN'T GET THEM, so certain teachers claim now they sense weakness –and can't play football for a bit. The team lose bad. Li has a breakdown and DeMartino bullies his way to taking her job. You suspect that he was using you to pull this off but good for him.

During the last summer, you volunteered at Okay-to-Cry Corral and talked a lot of kids into being more assertive. O'Neill wasn't happy but you think you & Jane made a difference.

You mention all this to Amelia and she starts to undermine her own school's deep state, but she's better at getting away with it. Who'd suspect Amelia?

The three of you have, to your mind, done good work. Lawndale High has certainly improved under DeMartino (the football team would not agree but screw them). You've been bitten by the intervention bug now. Do you really want to go to college? You could just go straight out into the world and see what happens. What to do?

Either way, Jane and Amelia may follow you. The Three Musketeers, just you against all the world.

IF YOU WANT TO GO TO COLLEGE, GO TO 49  
IF YOU WANT TO GO STRAIGHT TO WORK, GO TO 50


	27. Chapter 27

[27]

You knew the wedding was going to be bad when you saw the building it was hosted in and Amelia & you simultaneously went "redrum".

Your mother and aunts hate each other, Rita's partner and your dad seem to hate each other, Rita and everyone with a brain hates Erin's fiancé Brian, Quinn's pseudo-date hates Pastor Creepy McPaedo, and it all goes up in flames while your dad runs off to play golf.

And then Amelia talks to Erin during the big explosion. Amelia later comes out looking a bit shaken, telling you "now I know what it was like for you at camp", and you realise what she means when Erin abruptly announces the wedding, nay the marriage, is off because Brian Danielson is "a bunghole".

"It's the House of Usher," you tell Amelia.

When Aunt Rita twigs what happened, she severs all ties with your family. That doesn't seem too bad to you but your mother is quietly furious, more so because how do you blame a sixteen-year-old guest for asking if your niece was happy? She doesn't want to _say_ "you should let your cousin have an unhappy marriage for our convenience".

You can tell she wants to. It's damn irritating. Amelia did what someone else should have done. And one day, when your mother is snippy at you over some unrelated thing, you spit that out at her.

The relationship will get better but always be a bit cool. You can't take some things back and you don't want to.

You and Amelia stay friends, talking each other through all the tribulations of your high schools. You tell her exactly what you think when Jane gets a boyfriend and is around less, things you won't tell Jane (you don't want another cooled relationship).

Your correspondence starts to get intimate. Amelia realises first you might be gay too, bi at the least.

And over time, it's just easy to fall into a long-distance affair with the friend you've known for so long.

When college comes up, you dare to think that maybe you should both apply for the same one. Vance and Raft go on both your applications and you hope.

Take that deck. If it's an even-numbered card, GO TO 52. If it's odd-numbered, GO TO 53. If you got the royals, GO TO 54.

If you got the Joker, one of you has eleventh-hour second thoughts – is this really a good idea? Is this a good decision off the back of letters and a few stolen meetings? The relationship is called off, you got Raft feeling extremely down, and eventually fall into TV comedy writing – acerbic, vicious stuff, which makes you successful though it's not until your 30s you finally luck out at romance.

Better hope that was the best card, eh?


	28. Chapter 28

[28]

Gunfire came down from all sides and did not care this wasn't the front line. For the second time in your career, you fire back in anger. The anger's only half with the insurgents, some of whom are chumps or genuine patriots and not the rancid venal gangsters. The anger is also at the Pentagon, the President, the goddamn voting public for sending you here. You had a justified reason to be in Afghanistan. You could help in Afghanistan – you _did_ help.

Iraq is making you reconsider your random decision to be an army engineer.

Kevin's with you. You can tolerate him now you're not both at school – he's now a fond memory of non-violent times in a cheery flesh suit. He won't quit even if you do. He's a true believer. And he needs the money.

You hit someone. Your first kill. You hope he was a gangster bastard and not some kid.

All that comradery crap the media yells was in the army has turned out to be true and if not for Iraq, you might stay in the army and drift along on the sense of being with like-minded people. But nah. Nah, hell with this. After this tour, you're out.

Take those cards. Draw a heart and yours gets shrapnel through it a month before you leave, and you GO TO 0. You gambled wrong back in the day.

Otherwise, your future is a mechanic in Lawndale, married to Corporal Kevin Thompson and – sorry about this – you eventually divorce him because you're too different when you're not both in the army. Bad news for the two kids. You may think your life isn't as satisfying as you wanted but trust me on this, you would've had worse without rolling those dice. AND SO ON.

Oh, you got a Queen in one of the other suits? GO TO 51.


	29. Chapter 29

[29]

You didn't fail high school – you were always smart enough to coast – but everyone knows you didn't reach your potential. Your mother thinks you're smoking weed too. You're not but you are drinking early, and you let her think it was weed just to mess with her. (Burnout lent you some and you lit it up briefly & then flushed it, just for that)

The result of all this is: forced to get a job, getting bar work at the Zon, and eventually drifting away from home to squat in Dega Street while pretty, popular, perfect Quinn goes on to Vance. Dad keeps up contact with you – your mum no more, and they broke up anyway – and you hear she's doing so well, the little bitch.

There's a 35% chance you drift into sex work before 2008 and with your misanthropic attitude, you actually make a decent living off that (it takes all sorts). It's too late if you try in 2008, when the Zon has to cut stuff. 10% chance that on the way home from work, you're run over by a drunk Zon patron who thought he was still cool to drive, and in half of those you'll GO TO 0. The other half, with you crippled, isn't much fun.

Take that pack and if you draw a 4 of Spades: good news! You and 'Burnout' meet up one day by chance and hit it off, and you stay together into your old age whatever other path you've taken here – both dropouts together, a warm emotional rut that gets you through the grim times before you inevitably GO TO 0.

But otherwise, through choice and chance, you've lost.

AND SO ON.


	30. Chapter 30

[30]

"Hey, Mirage. We're Mystik Spiral."

"We thought of changing our name but we had important sloth to get to."

And off you go to _Prize Fighters_, the song you'd written when you saw Jodie and Upchuck fretting over some meaningless scholarship bauble that neither got. It's a nasty, jeering, cynical song. It really hit it big at the Zon (and got Jodie to whinge at you) but Mirage, well, therein lies a question.

You hit the drums for all they're worth. You've finally become mediocre at them. So you're twice as good as Spiral's old drummer, hooooooooo!

Trent and Jesse and Nick are hitting their parts well. Trent's husky voice makes the song sound extra sneery, which is good. You chime in at your bits of the chorus, the voice of the Scholarship taunting its prey.

Quinn's got into Vance, which is good. You still have vestigial loathing for the Quinn-that-was but hell, Quinn-that's-now deserves it. Your parents divorced, which is good for them, let's be honest. Your dad pretends to be proud you're working at "something you love", your mother does not but is clearly relieved you're earning and not taking drugs. You finally get that record deal, shit, then they'll be proud.

As the final of the song – you laugh at the lives you've taken and ignored – you finally check the crowd. There weren't many people in the club, Mirage has a lot of competition, but it looks like a few more came in and most seem pumped. Aww yeah. This is working.

"Time for _Highland_," says Nick, who's the best at reading a crowd.

"Cool," says Jesse.

"Yeah," says Trent, turning to you. "Ready, babe?"

"No but you hum it, I'll play along."

AND SO ON.


	31. Chapter 31

[31]

The storm clouds are gathering. The party's over. You picked a real bad time to get a job in Wall Street.

Or rather, everyone else did. You're Daria Morgendorffer. "Dire," they called you at Crestmore. Jodie turned up in your second year and while you stay in contact, she clearly didn't recognise the girl she found – because the elite, dog-eat-dog, hard working college was the place where a girl could reinvent herself and give license to all the darkness she'd covered up for three years. And it was all the more terrible for being restrained.

Dire was a planner, a sneak, a cynic, a laugh, a Judas, an American Psycho. The life of certain parties and the darling of several tutors and someone who could rarely be trusted and knew the angles. Wall Street beckoned.

Streiss & Streiss beckoned. It's a very male atmosphere but you have the humour to be 'one of the guys', and the vicious streak to be one of the big boys. You make twice as much as men five years older. And you're smart enough to make sure a certain amount of cash was squirrelled away in two separate banks so if anything happened, you wouldn't lose the apartment.

It's all happening now. Bear Stearns, they say, is about to collapse. S&S's shaky too. A lot of people are scared and you pretend to be because why show your cards?

And as the black wind blows through the Street, one day you accidentally hear the top dogs talking with Harry Ebbing himself, the Big Man from Dynaco, Wall Street's energy darling. And you hear the firm's not just shaky. You've been lying about certain things. The law wouldn't be happy with you. And Harry's been fibbing too. And they want to find a way out.

Well then. This is not what you wanted to hear. What do you do?

WALK AWAY AND STAY QUIET, GO TO 55  
LEAVE THE COMPANY, GO TO 56  
BLOW THE WHISTLE, GO TO 57


	32. Chapter 32

[32]

Vance was your second choice and that's where you end up, following Mack. Both of you are doing the Business course.

Of course you're both tempted. He'll break up with Jodie but you still won't hook up in 96% of all outcomes – Jodie is your friend. You meet other, better friends at Vance but Jodie's still special.

It's 2003 when you have the idea. Mack knows football and also hates it. You know writing. You now have friends who know web design and you & Mack are both business students. In 2004, Carter County Fantasy Football is unleashed on the world: an immensely detailed fantasy football MMORPG of sorts, full of high school players from the titular county playing for the state championship and the line-up alters each year. Often, bad things happen. Injury, steroid abuse, syphilis in three cases. It's a game for true fans who also love some soap opera.

When you graduate, you're already worth half a million and the sum goes steadily up. If that deck of cards pulls out an 8, a 10, or a Jack, whoops, the great recession is going to obliterate your company. It's the death of your friendship with Mack and all of the 'Round Table' from Vance – all of them lose their shirts too, you just were smart enough to save a 'Montana cabin fund'. When the recovery happens under Obama, you can find work in Accounts and live a lucrative but unsatisfactory life until you GO TO 0.

Anything else, you're going to get richer and richer. Carter County gets merchandise and fiction tie-ins, some of which you write too. When you're thirty this all is getting weary but unless you got a 1, 3, or 7, you stay in place for the money. The firm starts to feel like a prison by the time you're 32. Was this the best you can do? You start to splurge money more to fill the hole, AND SO ON.

Got that 1, 3, or 7, you cash in and move on. Carter County is never quite the same without you but hell, you've got money and a rep. You picked the right time to leave. Now you can make or write anything you want, whenever you want, AND SO ON. You got a good hand.


	33. Chapter 33

[33]

Before your family leaves Highland, there's two nights of intense violence.

Leroy's house is broken into and he's stabbed to death, seventeen wounds to the chest and neck, after his bodyguard was shot in the face.

His gang, headless and scared, retaliates. Todd Ianuzzi is wounded outside Mini-Mart, and his partner Gina and second-in-command Slade are killed.

Todd retaliates with his entire gang. The police arrest all the survivors.

Earl wasn't arrested at the scene. You provide an alibi for him and he gets to walk. Thirteen people are dead and he started it, but other than Gina you feel nothing for them.

In Lawndale, you continue to correspond with Earl as he eventually drifts into the Army. (He will serve two tours of Afghanistan, win a Medal of Honor, and be considered a pillar of the community by people who considered him a punk before.) You make some friends – you're never the most sociable but those who you do hang with, they always say "Daria will have your back". That's what a friend is. You have people's backs. You know there's no limits to that.

(One day, you take a knife and you cut Charles Ruttheimer in a place that can be written off as him having an accident, and you make it clear what happens if he keeps his shit up. It was the second day you knew him. Jane sees and proves she's a friend by pretending she did not.)

For the rest of your life, you will sometimes have nightmares or get triggered. But you keep your friends, you go to Raft, you take a job as a journalist and writer. You carry on and you never say a word again.

AND SO ON.


	34. Chapter 34

[34]

It was the second time you met Upchuck that cracked your composure. You remember hitting him and running to the school roof – Jane had mentioned that would be a cool hang out spot – and, of course, Jane remembered and found you.

The story comes out. You don't look at Jane because you don't want to know if she pities you.

When she hugs you, you laugh because what? Was that how it went? Yeesh. You imagined Earl hugging you if he'd known and that got you laughing again.

"She who laughs last, laughs longest? Hypothesis disproved."

Jane's face is resting on your shoulder, because she's too tall for it to do anything else. "Do you want me to, uh…"

"If you're going to say 'tell anyone', I want you to imagine Mr O'Neill trying to deal with this. Picture it. Get a good image of O'Neill trying to even say rape."

"Oh god I see whinging."

"It's full of tears."

"How about Barch?"

"She'd use that as an excuse to pre-emptively castrate the football team. Yeah, we should tell Barch."

It takes a year but eventually Upchuck stops Upchucking at women – first he was just scared of another freakout but over time, he seems to twig he got less stick. You still don't talk to him though. You'll never fully trust him, even when he starts dating your sister's friend Stacy.

Jane, you trust. Jane knows your secret now. You make some other friends but Jane is the alpha and the omega. You hang out less when she starts dating Tom but there's always time. And hell, Tom's cool and has all the morbidity you like in all your friends. He and Jane eventually break up, but you keep in touch, and over time Jane and Tom hang out like war-torn states developing a trade link.

Sometimes you have nightmares or get triggered. You never tell anyone.

You lose contact with Earl – you exchange mail every now and then, but you're from two different worlds. When Tom talks you into applying for Bromwell, your carefully developed jadedness starts to crack and you have the urge to call Earl. Bromwell is a completely different life and you want some grounding.

TO CALL EARL, GO TO 58  
IF NOT, GO TO 59


	35. Chapter 35

[35]

"However, given the unalterable fact that high school sucks, I'd like to add that if you're lucky enough to have people that care about you, it doesn't have to suck quite as much. Otherwise, my advice is: stand firm for what you believe in, until and unless logic and experience prove you wrong; remember, when the emperor looks naked, the emperor is naked; the truth and a lie are not "sort of the same thing"; and there's no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can't be improved with pizza. Thank you."

After you get off the stage, noting with satisfaction that nobody 'normal' seems sure how to take this speech, Jane – driven down from Lawndale especially – gives you a high five. To her shock, you hug her.

"I liked everything up to sucks," says Luhrman. "After that it seems to lose something."

"Your boyfriend gets it," says Jane. "Can we timeshare him? My last boyfriend was, urg, optimistic."

"My god. You've changed, Jane."

"You're the one going to—" She affects a snooty voice. "Broooohhhmmmwell!"

"She's living the American dream of selling out," says Luhrman.

"This is a private school. I was sold to them."

"So is private school any better than our pleb-filled socialist sinkhole schools?" asks Jane.

"Highland was better." It wasn't but you believe it by age 18.

"Ouch."

Aunt Rita and Stepdad No.7 don't know how to take any of this, but Erin seems happy enough. "I saw Principal Hacken look like a baby eating sprouts! That's a memory I'm treasuring forever!"

"I am to please, sis."

Erin is outwardly flighty, nice, and sweet, but when you let your walls down you found she has a core of bitterness about parents, class, and _especially_ her former husband. When that dumpster fire of a relationship collapsed, everyone – Rita, her friends, the Devil AKA Ma Barksdale – pushed for her to 'save it' but you didn't. You were her rock. Her sarcastic, misanthropic rock.

"So who wants to improve every aspect and facet of their lives?" Erin, oh so sweetly, nods to Stepdad No.7 and says "Felix is buying!"

AND SO ON.


	36. Chapter 36

[36]

Lurhman, in one roll of the dice in your many timelines, joked about drinking bleach and he only partly meant it. Such jokes keep happening in this stream and you feed it. Neither of you is happy. Neither of you sees a point. There's a feedback loop.

The morbid jokes stop being jokes.

Your shock tactics at school aren't tactics.

One day, it comes to a head.

"How to get to Sesame Street," you say as you go down the arm and GO TO 0.


	37. Chapter 37

[37]

Brett went to Pepper Hill while you went to Raft, so in the end the relationship didn't last. You stay friends – which is good since he was the first person you ever slept with and it'd suck to have a bad story about that – and you meet other people. Word gets around that you have a criminal record, a night in the cells for vandalism (you just couldn't outrun Cumberland's guards easy), so you get a rep for being 'cool'. That's never happened before.

Cool people who are sarcastic get told they should try open-mike night. You do pretty well.

Locally, you start getting paid for stand-up. You still get your degree, but you've got your new passion. People will_ pay you_ to be rude.

While you only vaguely watched _The Daily Show_, you damn well lie you love it when, years later, they offer you the job of new host.

AND SO ON


	38. Chapter 38

[38]

There's a few dates with Brett but you both move on. Now, however, you know you can get boys – screw you, The World, you've got something. You feel like getting more.

Tom will admit one day he was checking _Jane_ out but is glad you thought he was looking at you. Any guy worth it will be okay with you pursuing him, you thought, and Tom sure reacted well to being pursued.

The summer Jane's at Ashfield, you and Tom get far closer than either of you expected. Which Jane will never stop cracking wise about and Quinn will never stop going "EW" about.

When you see that box in the garden and it brings back bad memories and you need to get away for a bit, Tom and the Cove is there, albeit full of smelly old people.

And one day, you've got offers from both Bromwell and Raft.

TO ACCEPT BROMWELL, GO TO 60  
TO ACCEPT RAFT, GO TO 61


	39. Chapter 39

[39]

Nathan has a certain charisma, and he's certainly on point about a lot of things, and he does take you to interesting places.

And he's demanding. And sometimes he's angry with you. But that's how things go, and sometimes they go that way too much, and he doesn't get on with your friends so you don't arrange joint things as much, and—

It's two months before you realise what Nathan's doing and what he is. When you call it off, he comes very close to hitting you.

Your confidence is a bit shaky, so you don't talk Jane into trying for art college like you intended. You stay friends but it's a drag being separated by states. After graduating, you move back to Lawndale and the two of you share the old Lane house: she does the art, you do the writing. Your writing ends up doing better than her art and that strains things a bit, but you got her the cover job for _You Don't Belong Here_ to balance things out.

AND SO ON


	40. Chapter 40

[40]

You're at Raft, Jane's at BFAC, Ted's got Crestmore, and Jodie's got Turner and Crestmore. Andrea's the only one of your friends not to hit it big (or at all) in the college stakes, and slowly you lose touch.

Jodie starts up that start-up loan company she dreamed about, Ted makes it big in urban planning, you're Literature with a side order of Chemistry, Jane starts to do well in graphics. You suggest as a joke that Obama should hire you four.

Ted thinks you mean it and runs for state senate. Jodie, inspired by the new president and just needing an extra kick, runs for the big Senate. Jane's their campaign design woman and while you don't really have the chops for the nice end of politics, you've got the mind for the darker arts.

After your first two wins, Tiffany Duke Consulting is on the way across the country and in 2016, you'll down a whole bottle in celebration when you realise you've rigged the Senate 51-49 against the incoming bastard.

AND SO ON


	41. Chapter 41

[41]

Everything carries on as before until Tom enters the picture and your crush on Trent exits it. At first you loathe Tom for getting in the way. Then you start to tolerate him, then you like him as you realise how much like you he is.

Jane points out, in a burst of anger, you like him too much.

You're in a car with him, agreeing anything you two do would be wrong.

Look, you're seventeen and emotionally stunted. What happens next is not really under conscious control – your sin is choosing to get into the car, you knew that was a bad idea. But in this stream it's too late.

If you draw the Heart of Love or the Spade of Digging a hole, you kiss Tom. If you admit it to Jane you GO TO 62, if you bury the truth deep in your soul you GO TO 63.

Drew the Club or the Diamond, your hormones don't fully kick you and you get out, never realising Tom almost kissed you and feels burning shame. The next day, he will break up with Jane.

Over a few months, Jane – exasperated with you both – gives you permission to date Tom. It's not a grand force of great burning passion but there's a soft comfort in it that lasts until your first year at Raft. In your student days, you mellow out.

After graduating with a Literature degree, you'll never quite make it in TV comedy like you wanted but you sell moderately well as a fiction writer, which bolsters a day job. You one day get married, get divorced, get married again. It's an alright life.

AND SO ON


	42. Chapter 42

[42]

At least Jodie's at Grove Hill. There's one friendly face – also Upchuck's there, heyoooo – in amongst a sea of assholes. Some of them remember you from busting on them before and they are ready to put the boot in. It's a constant war of snide remarks, accidental shoves, and low-level aggression.

It gets to you, but you've faced this before. It's been a good few years away from it but you can handle this shit, as long as Jane is waiting outside and it's just one year. And Jodie has your back.

But Jodie hasn't faced this shit as recently as you have. Over the months, you see her composure keeps slipping. There's cracks. She retorts once, loudly, then stops. So now she's been loud the bullying gets explicitly racist. When Mack breaks up with her, you start to worry she won't make it through the year.

You see there's two options: the first is to try and get Jodie to 'be more Daria', try to talk her through all this. The second is to go on the offensive and make people like Graham back off.

FOR PASSIVE RESISTANCE, GO TO 64  
FOR ACTIVE AGGRESSION, GO TO 65


	43. Chapter 43

[43]

Lawndale High has hit the iceberg and it sent it onto another iceberg. Mrs Bennett is the newest principal and the faculty has had to dredge up the scum at the bottom of the barrel – and dig harder when Ken Edwards gets fired for, well, being scum. The football team is disqualified from matches after the leaks so there goes that revenue for a year, and there goes the senior year's chance of football scholarships.

Which you don't give a shit about, to be honest. Okay, half a shit for Mack. Mack was okay. Key word ends up being 'was', as with the team gone and his scholarship gone he's gone off the rails, no longer interested in staying polite and quiet around his 'buddies' on the team or indeed anyone.

You and Jane are fine – the way the classes are going, her moderately okay grades look better! You can actually convince Jane that with this artificial bump, she could go to college. All she needs is some cash and when she realises replica paintings can do that, she sets to work. It causes a minor burnout but she gets over the hump as she has a reason, The Holy BFAC, and you get your dad to help her with business stuff anyway. He, er, does his best.

Against all instincts, you apply for the Wizard Foundation scholarship prize to give yourself a boost (you're not sure colleges like Raft will look kindly on Lawndale as it is now). Because Mack looks miserable, you let him know about the prize too. He could do with the break.

Take that deck of cards – red cards, you GO TO 66. Black cards, GO TO 67.


	44. Chapter 44

[44]

You have a job at MTV, promoting your show. How did that happen? How are you simultaneously a show and a person at MTV? That gnaws at you, an existential crisis that you deal with by being sarcastic.

"This is Daria and Jane's Top Ten Weird Fanfics List, unless and until we're pre-empted for a Real World of Teen Moms' Road Rules Special."

Only your lips and eyes move. Budgets, eh? You knew your life was cheaping it.

"And for the first on our list, GO TO 1…"


	45. Chapter 45

[45]

You absolutely cannot stop grinding now. Your work is crucial. You punish the guilty and save the innocent. After all those years of guilt over not helping, you can help.

And you work, and you work, and you work, and Daria Morgendorffer is praised and damned in equal measure for sending so many to jail and clearing many others. It takes a lot of caffeine and then smoking and long nights but you keep it up.

In 2017, you die. Your body gives out. You did a lot of good for a lot of people because you pushed yourself so hard; maybe you could have done more if you'd lived longer. You left behind a grieving partner and a family that, Quinn included, thought you were a hero; maybe more people could have known about you. It's your decision if this was a worthwhile adult life or not, but either way you GO TO 0.


	46. Chapter 46

[46]

"Do you know what I don't miss?" you ask. "Everything. The answer is everything."

Van Driessen shrugs. "Daria, you need to take a more cosmic view of things. If after all you've done you come here, then here is where you should be."

Highland High waits for you like a stalking beast. You really doubt this is where any divine plan led but it was where the job ads and the training went, and rent needs a-paying.

"Welcome to teaching, Mrs Morgendorffer – we're confiscating the paddles."

"Oh, it's not so bad. You get used to the rougher kids."

Quinn was speaking to you again because, since they both lived in Texas and had been living with Mum, she had to. Things could only get better. Like, Highland High could burn down.

On the other hand, you get to mould young, impressionable minds. That's pretty much the appeal of it for you. Van Driessen helped keep you going, one of your rare good teachers, and you can pay the favour on. Maybe you can even get some kids to believe in evolution. A good, noble job to have.

As the new students file in, you begin to hum the Jaws theme to the other teachers.

AND SO ON


	47. Chapter 47

[47]  
In 2008, the economy has crashed hard. That means cutbacks at the paper you were working at – but you saw that coming and were looking for a new job before then. You have top grades from Raft and friends in New England, that gets you a snazzy job at the Washington Post. Well, sorta snazzy. You get paid.

You move for it and when you check the area, you find a suburb called Lawndale – once doing great, now having a downturn like everywhere else – has some houses at a workable price. And you can even pretend you don't know it's from foreclosures. You wince when you get there. Lawndale's a boorish, too-clean suburb where all the ethnic minorities seem to have been rounded up in the night.

In your first night, you treat yourself and eat out on the greasiest pizza imaginable. In the booth across, a scrawny tattooed woman is drawing as she eats – and you see she's drawn you. In your trenchcoat and glasses, and with your figure, you've been drawn as a creepy nosferatu with granny glasses.

"Seems legit," you say over her shoulder.

"I tell only the purest truth."

"I've just moved here – my name's Daria – is there anything to do in town other than eat pizza?"

"If you like really bad aggro music, then yes! If not, nah, get out fast."

You shrug. "I could grow to like it. I grew to love Big Brother."

"Jane Lane. Local artist. Don't ask me what I draw."

"Daria Morgendorffer, reporter. Don't ask me my sources."

"You should check out my old school, there's a story there. Fire and blood and anguish and also football!"

"Football, eh? Tell me more."

IF YOU SERIOUSLY WANT TO INVESTIGATE, GO TO 68  
IF YOU'RE JOKING, GO TO 69


	48. Chapter 48

[48]  
Your parents loaded up the car and drove you to Caltech, telling you they were proud, telling you this was the first day of your life.

And in a thousand outcomes from this point, it is. But I'm going to be unfair to you, because you have to remember sometimes shit just happens.

In a hundred outcomes, the car is right in the wrong place when a semi-truck jack-knifes and you GO TO 0.


	49. Chapter 49

[49]

Amelia's with you at Raft and Jane's at BFAC, and by day you're just regular students – offputtingly morbid and rude students, but still students. When anything dirty rises in front of you, "Melody Powers" starts dropping articles with the local press. Minor corruption, a tutor having sex with students and being covered up, local drug gangs, all of them come under your radar.

Did you draw a spade? You'll have to GO TO 0 because that gang you ticked off found out.

Jane will eventually go in for political art and Amelia will form a separate career after graduating, but you're going to become a notorious corruption busting reporter, one who if she draws a 1, 4, or 7 red card has to GO TO 0. You'll have a few busted relationships, assaults, break-ins, and menacing encounters, if the Jack of Clubs shows up you're going to end up crashing hard and if it's a Joker you'll degenerate into an easily-rooked conspiracy obsessive.

You picked a difficult job, one for adults with stamina. Keep it together and don't let anyone see you sweat.

AND SO ON.


	50. Chapter 50

[50]

The police beckoned to you.

Then the Internal Affairs department beckoned to you. Nobody had to headhunt, not after you shopped your own partner for racial abuse. Where else where you going?

You're the least popular IA officer in all of Maryland because you absolutely will not stop. Jane lives around locally and is a handy 'in' for sources who might not tell the truth to a pig but will to a friend of a cool person. Amelia majored in journalism but your stories led her to the FBI; your worlds are linked but never quite touching.

Draw a Club and your relentless pursuit of justice gets you clubbed. Certainly, you're not popular and you have to watch your back. Job satisfaction doesn't come cheap.

AND SO ON.


	51. Chapter 51

[51]

You got lucky, the way you see it – you got to Afghanistan for your next tour. If you drew the Queen of Spades, an IED will make you GO TO 0 but at least you died doing a job you felt strongly about, eh?

The mood in the country in 2008, and the result, got you coming home. You went for a government job, wanting to be in on the ground floor, and if you got Clubs you'll work in the Pentagon itself. Nobody messes with the Big D. You've got a wit that cuts limbs off and you dig deep and you know the field better than most of your co-workers. You're not going to have fun in 2017 but this is the roll of the dice, AND SO ON.

Queen of Diamonds, you don't get the job and you end up working local government in Pennsylvania. You end up a Representative: that war record trumps your age. When the election comes in 2016, you fight like hell to get your constituents to vote Clinton.

In November, the country narrowly avoids a really bad outcome and you end up headhunted for a Cabinet job for your troubles. This is a hard, gruelling life and to my surprise, trust me, the whole planet benefits from you ignoring Jane at school. AND SO ON.


	52. Chapter 52

[52]

You made it to Raft – Amelia did not. She made it to Vance – you did not.

Draw a 1 or an 8, and your relationship breaks up in the first month of college. You stay friends, with Skype eventually replacing snail mail, but the desperate young passion bled out. You never make it enough in TV comedy despite getting the bug, but your horror novels will sell well. AND SO ON.

Otherwise, well. The relationship wobbles but neither of you were that great at making friends – and Jane's following to BFAC so there's no impetus to try – so you stay long-distance. In any break, you meet up, and in that first spring break together, well, that desperate young passion explodes.

As long as neither of you GO TO 0 due to random chance, you're going to graduate with Literature & Chemistry and a reputation in local stand-up – you got frustrated when Amelia wasn't there and this was your outlet. Your comedy is awkward, isolated, stunted, the stories of losers, and there's a lot of losers it catches on with. Once you start living with Amelia, there's a whole new vein of awkwardness to dig up. The two of you are 85% likely to be very happy and your comedy 91% likely to be very successful. And after being apart for so long, it takes a long time for your passions to ever settle down to normal adult level.

AND SO ON.


	53. Chapter 53

[53]

You both lucked out: both in Raft.

The first month is like being drunk. Everything is new – the situation, the town, the classes, the peers, and oh yeah, you lucked out as roommates and you're not just in a short-distance relationship with your girlfriend, you're living with her. Both of you are too awkward to make the first proper move. There's time.

Raft is a college that seems custom made for you to go. You actually make some new sort-of friends – and Jane's coming halfway through the year, which is going to be great. You and Amelia do different courses, but you always see each other after.

Over time, however, you see each other less. You've got a new circle and so has she, and sometimes you two go out at night on your own. You have less in common. When Jane arrives you hang out with her a lot and I'm afraid Amelia isn't quite able to call you out for not being around enough.

You've broken up before the summer break. It wasn't a good breakup – after all, rooming together meant neither of you could walk out to get a breather. As long as you didn't draw a 6, good news, you both reconcile as friends. In your third year, 50% chance you meet Antonio.

You've leaned more towards the Chemistry part of your Literature & Chemistry degree, and you get convinced by friends to stay on for postgraduate study. That will see you put roots down in Boston and slowly, gradually, you find yourself becoming a tutor at Raft. AND SO ON.


	54. Chapter 54

[54]

You both made it to Vance – this means you have to accept Jane and you will be in different states. That's not fun. (Draw a Jack and you bottle out and go to Raft, in which case GO TO 52)

The first month is chaos – everything is different and all that's familiar is Amelia. You two cling together. It was lucky you were roommates, though of you are too awkward to make the first proper move. There's time.

You knew Mack was at Vance but it's a few weeks before you run into him. He's taken to his degree like a duck to water. Amelia struggles a bit but you keep her on course. Through long distance contact with Jane, you try and fail to keep her in BFAC, as in her second year she drops out to join a touring installation group.

You and Amelia get pretty close. The closet isn't so much exited as your fellow students blunder into it and discover Narnia – the two of you face enough crap that you're bonded by adversity.

It's 2003 when you have the idea. Mack knows football and also hates it. You know writing, he knows business, some people you & Amelia meet at an LGBT group know web design. In 2004, Carter County Fantasy Football is unleashed on the world: an immensely detailed fantasy football MMORPG of sorts, full of high school players from the titular county playing for the state championship and the line-up alters each year. Often, bad things happen. Injury, steroid abuse, syphilis in three cases. It's a game for true fans who also love some soap opera.

When you graduate, you're already worth half a million and the sum goes steadily up. Holy shit. After talking with Amelia, you decide to cash in after another year – you still get called on to write the first Carter County tie-in books – and use the money to fund whatever the hell you two want to do. Amelia, it turns out, likes being a mortician.

If that deck of cards is black, you go with your plan for a black comedy take on your old high schools. Blacksol High doesn't quite catch on if you drew 1-5 and you end up a jobbing writer; 6-10, you do quite well for yourself and even the recession (6-7) undermining your work doesn't stop you; get a royal card, you're going to be damn rich.

If that deck was red, you try your hand first at a romance book. If the card is 1 to 7, even though it's critically acclaimed it doesn't catch on; you're going to keep working but never find another hit like Carter County. Anything above 8, you sell, you'll get a film deal, and you write a few more before moving genre

Whatever path you take, unless you draw a Joker – then you and Mack end up kissing in his car while having a discussion about how that would be dumb – you're getting married as soon as you legally can.

AND SO ON


	55. Chapter 55

[55]

One day, there's a small power issue in Florida. Then some more. Dynaco owns the contract to supply power in the state and during these not-so-minor blackouts, power is at a premium and stocks shoot up. S&S and Dynaco both make a killing.

There's scattering of injuries. Two deaths.

You make the connection. Oh shit.

Maybe you should report it. You really should. Because the law got real suspicious about the timing and both companies were real arrogant about whether they'd be caught. In ten days, the wolves will be clawing through the door. But you're panicked, caught out, feel in deep.

Do something and all your life won't go away, you won't have your company die and you won't have the stink of being-caught on you forever.

When you gonna do something?

AND SO ON. 


	56. Chapter 56

[56]

One day, there's a small power issue in Florida. Then some more. Dynaco owns the contract to supply power in the state and during these not-so-minor blackouts, power is at a premium and stocks shoot up. S&S and Dynaco both make a killing.

There's scattering of injuries. Two deaths.

You make the connection. Oh shit.

You report it fast. Now you know the full scope, you warn the Feds and watch your back with a rape alarm and some pepper spray. Doesn't matter if that mugger was a disguised hitman or genuine, he got a face of mace and you don't go out for a while.

Streiss & Streiss and Dynaco both end up as victims of the great recession and a bunch of them in jail. You really haven't kept any friends at S&S, and you're finding a lot of your Crestmore crowd want some distance from you. Snitches get snubbed.

You write an autobiography and a general book on Dynaco itself, both bestsellers. You're one of the experts called in to the news. Aubrey Plaza plays you in a film (it's okay).

And for the rest of your life, you feel worried that all you've done is due to luck, that you live in a random, uncaring universe and the slightest divergence would have changed your life irrevocably. You start to get into prepping. You don't really think that will make a difference.

AND SO ON.


	57. Chapter 57

[57]

The regulators are going to take care of it. You've done your part.

That mugging that goes wrong outside your home, the clean Feds will always think this is a hit and while they expose their mole, they never can prove it.

GO TO 0.


	58. Chapter 58

[58]

"Dee! You're at college yet?"

"One last trip through the Twelfth Circle" – Highland had been the Tenth and she was leaving Eleventh an open spot – "and it's off to Purgatory with me. You?"

"Eh, I don't need no diploma for my job. Mr Van Driessen says I'm doing well though." He sounds proud – Van Driessen, endlessly patient and calm, was the only teacher Earl respected. "Don't care what the others say."

"I, er… I might be at Bromwell. That's where Richie Rich got his diploma in Good Breeding."

"You won't go."

"Excuse me?"

"People like that don't want people like us."

"I've been lying to myself they will in case it comes true. You gotta have faith, as Nader told his rubes."

"You hear Todd got busted?"

"Fourth time's the charm?"

"He ain't coming out this time."

It comes out before you can stop yourself: "And Leroy?"

"Still being a punk."

You grasp the phone hard but contain yourself beyond: "He should've died years ago."

"Lotta folks like that."

"That there are."

When Bromwell rejects you, you tell Tom you have no intention of appealing – they will not take someone like you. It takes a frustrating hour of talking and yelling, but he eventually gets it or least pretends to. You stay in contact at Raft and he does seem to truly get it. When you graduate with a degree in Literature and Chemistry and look for writing work, Tom barrels into the Democrat Party and, to the astonishment of local media, emerges as a firebrand state representative and later senator in Obama's last two years. What you did from this point on will not change that.

But you can draw your cards again and if you get a club, your contact with Tom increases and you end up marrying. You join the EPA and the Sloanes become a political power couple. You will face great heartbreak in November 2016 and then retaliate with utter ferociousness – you've heard that "pussy" tape and some things will not be tolerated. AND SO ON.

If you draw another suite, you have a choice after graduating. The first is to go into scientific writing. If so, GO TO 59 AND THE LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS.

You could also do more political writing. Your Bromwell experience sparked an interest. TO DO THIS, GO TO 70.


	59. Chapter 59

[59]

You don't get into Bromwell. This is how Tom helps:

"There must be a mistake." "Your interview was only fifteen minutes?" "That's terrible, we need to fix this."

So you appeal and get rejected again, and Tom…. Well, it's clear Tom doesn't get that you're just not the right type of middle-class person. He thinks everyone has a first-name relationship with the Dean. That's his world.

You know, with some sadness, you can't rely on Tom and the two of you will separate at college. You tell Jane this but not Tom. And at Raft, that happens.

You emerge from Raft with a degree in Literature and Chemistry and a bunch of college friends. You go through a boyfriend and a girlfriend before opening up to fellow Lit student Antonio. If you draw a red card from your deck, you two will have kids (girl if Hearts, boy if Diamonds). Either way, you're a science correspondent and book writer from now until you finally GO TO 0.

Long before that, you got another article to write because that rent doesn't pay itself.

AND SO ON.


	60. Chapter 60

[60]

Welcome to Bromwell. It's a whole new world and, to be honest, you don't like it. That wouldn't be so bad if Lawndale hadn't got you used to hanging with people on your wavelength – you can never go back to splendid isolation.

And Tom doesn't get it. Tom's fine: this is his world. He sees you're not happy but doesn't get why. He tries to explain why.

You spend some time in town, more and more, which the 'townies' view as slumming it until they get to know you. If you draw a 4 or an 8, you cheat on Tom one day in town and that's it, you realise you're done, you break up the next morning. Anything else, it takes another month but you still break up. To your parents' disappointment, you leave Bromwell and transfer to Raft – where Jane, already at BFAC, is ready to console you with greasy pizza.

You will go on to have an okay career but never a challenging one, a good life but not a spectacular one. Bromwell taught you that there's a rut you're happy with and you'll stay there. And is that so bad?

AND SO ON


	61. Chapter 61

[61]

You and Tom spend a lot of time and effort getting your relationship to work despite the distance.

Did you draw a Heart or Diamond? Then good news! It works! You later have to struggle to keep your grades going as well, so you miss out on some of the "college experience", but you still graduate with a high score and you've still got a boyfriend. Later, a husband. When he goes into the family business, you spend your days in leisure and writing – you will frequently feel unsatisfied with your career, that you could do more, but your social satire books are doing really well. Your son Cyrus is the light of your life. AND SO ON.

If you drew a different card, well, GO TO 71


	62. Chapter 62

[62]

It's emotionally grinding but in the end, you and Jane are firm friends again and you're dating Tom openly. Just like Jane used to, he sometimes pushes you into things you wouldn't have done.

The biggest thing of all is when you choose to have sex.

TO DO IT, GO TO 72  
TO BOTTLE OUT, GO TO 73


	63. Chapter 63

[63]

Tom feels guilty and so do you, and when neither of you can admit why it festers. You and Jane never see Tom again after the first week of summer. You never tell Jane. She never learns, as far as you know.

You never bust on her boorish retro boyfriend. Over the months, you notice she's less happy but it's a long time before you dare say anything – she eventually comes to you, saying Nathan's controlling and a gaslighter. She gets out. You feel guilty you didn't help.

You're the third highest student in your year and make it to Raft. Jane is staying in Lawndale to work full time, and that distance in 2001 makes it harder to stay in contact; you're still good friends but that great closeness is gone.

As long as you live, you'll never quite have that closeness with anyone again.

AND SO ON


	64. Chapter 64

[64]

Jodie turns out to be better than you thought she'd be at passive resistance, at tuning shit out and not giving a crap. She's not so good at the sarcasm but she has the poker face and the disinterest that the persecution starts to taper down to less horrible levels. So that's a good outcome.

You don't know people very well. Worse, you didn't know Jodie as well as you thought.

When Jodie applies for Crestmore, you do too – hell, dream the dream, right? You get in there, Raft, and Baltimore, in that order of caring. The Landons celebrate how you both did so well, talk you up as future power players.

And the day after graduation, Jodie kills herself.

And Jane and Quinn and your parents tell you that you couldn't have done anything but you know, deep down, you didn't help her, you didn't notice, maybe…

You cancel on Crestmore and go to Raft. When you're working in the Chemistry labs, you never wonder 'what if' about Crestmore – you do wonder 'what if' about Jodie. This never ends.

AND SO ON.


	65. Chapter 65

[65]

You know who can't be sarcastic and confrontational with people? Jodie. She tries and she can get some good contempt on, but with the hardcore bullies it just brings them down on her harder – she's too righteous. So you step in to help and that does it a bit, but at the end of the day Jodie is not you.

Some of it stuck. She starts to tell her parents she wants out, she doesn't want Crestmore. Not enough of it stuck for her to win, unfortunately. When Jodie has her nervous breakdown, you are upset but you can't say you're surprised.

Grove Hills leaves you angry, harder than you were, and someone who went up to the 'scariest' bully Jodie faced and convince her you were going to call in a legbreaker from Highland if she kept that shit up. It leaves you someone who, to your parents' dismay, has no interest in college. No more of this shit after Grove Hills.

The easiest job to get is one at the bank, and over the years your ruthless attitude and high smarts makes you one of the top clerks – and when 2008 comes along and the bank's foundations wobble, you get promoted because you didn't touch any dodgy mortgages at all. You end up running the foreclosures and it's a grim, wearying job but everyone in town knows you as the woman who does everything she can to avoid foreclosing.

Except on two Grove Hills students. They can lose it all. You will never forget or forgive.

You don't like your job but you grow to see it as a duty, and with your cash and reputation you eke out an alright personal life.

AND SO ON


	66. Chapter 66

[66]

In the end, you do not get that prize and neither does Mack. You just lost it at the last second, unable to jump through the hoops. So it goes.

Mack does not take losing this last chance well and he's expelled in the end. You don't know what happens after that and you're afraid to.

You and Jane both head out to Boston as students, one to Raft and one to BFAC. You start to move into stand-up, but you never fully exploit your skill at it – your first work, starting in college and continuing to graduating, is writing about Mack, or a fictional man based on him anyway. Where did his life go after school? You work on the tome for two and a half years, it wins prizes but only has sleeper sales until Netflix comes sniffing around in 2015. By that point you've written a few more books in your spare time while working as a chemist.

The money's dead handy because you just got pregnant with Trent Junior's new sister – how you and Jane's brother got together is a bizarre tale, starting with Trent heading for Boston when his sister does and (as his band went to Mirage) becoming a fixture of the local music scene. He actually became vaguely responsible. It was amazing. Your marriage is not going too well but the Hollywood money's a great help. It's a new life, one more comfortable and where you can write full time.

Draw an odd numbered card or a Queen, a life without Trent and trust me, draw those cards. You get all the money and none of the personal strife.

AND SO ON.


	67. Chapter 67

[67]

You don't win the prize but Mack does. Vance is confirmed.

In the last two months of Lawndale, Mack and you fall into a relationship of sorts. He's your first boyfriend, you're his second real girlfriend, and neither of you have that much in common except being smart and disliking school. Well, it's enough for those months.

You and Jane both head out to Boston as students, one to Raft and one to BFAC. Trent, to your amazement, follows Jane and becomes vaguely responsible. You start to move into stand-up and you're damn good at it. And you also start to put feelers out in the dating scene because you've tasted it and you want more.

In defiance of all sense, you even date Trent for a week.

One random girlfriend – that was a weird thing to learn about yourself – in the stand-up scene will one day recommend you to an up-and-coming show she gets an in with. You were starting work in scientific journalism but by 2007 you're a full-time, professional comedian and your misanthropic style really catches the mood of the country. As long as bad things keep happening, your rise is assured.

AND SO ON


	68. Chapter 68

[68]

You dig and you dig and you did, and you find all the bodies. Several teachers – particularly the old union head DeMartino and the bitter science teacher Barch – are willing to tell all, and so is one of the former football coaches, used up and spat out. You find former Lawndale Lions captain Michael Mackenzie and he's willing to tell a lot. The former pseudo-accountant, Bennett, someone the school fitted out and forced out during a scandal, she's willing to talk too, a savage glint in her eye. And then there's the kids who went to Lawndale and never left, some bitter, some just too dumb to realise what they're saying.

With Jane's help, you even track down the Class of '01's valedictorian Jodie Landon and she has a wealth of stories.

All the poison in the mud comes out.

Principal Angela Li is arrested a month before retirement. The scandal is huge.

Your house gets egged, then painted, then a brick through the window. You're an Outsider that's brought shame and ruined the football team's good name. (Oh and a school, but mainly the football team) Vandalism increases slowly and nobody seems to have seen anything.

So you move to Oakwood and, because you're a ruthless bitch when roused, start to dig even more into the Lawndale community and local government. After that, you get a few threatening calls but you're already moving to Baltimore.

You can't ever go back to Lawndale again but now the Baltimore Sun and WaPo are in a bidding war for you and there's a book deal. So you don't care.

AND SO ON


	69. Chapter 69

[69]

Lawndale's a going-downhill dump but it's an affordable dump, and Jane – completely outside your previous experience, nothing like the few friends you have – rapidly becomes your best friend. She just gets it. She gets you. You get her. Not in a romantic way, you're not bi or anything, but she's the sort of friend you wish you'd had long ago.

When you remember Amelia, you wish Jane had been at Camp Grizzly. She could have handled it better.

You'll get married after a while to a local businessman called Michael Mackenzie – "Mack", everyone calls him – and have an abnormally serious daughter, and you'll keep reporting as long as anyone pays you, and Jane's always there. So maybe all the bad stuff in your childhood worked out after all.

AND SO ON


	70. Chapter 70

[70]

Highland is an even greater shithole than you remembered, and you remembered a vast open sewer that chanted "HUH HUH HUH". The great recession wiped out the 'nice' part of town. When you ask around the mall, you hear worried staff tell you it's hanging on by a thread. A tech call centre has opened in an abandoned building because the locals are desperate enough to work there.

Before this, you went to Bromwell. You wrote a long article for Rolling Stone about it: the students, the campus, the "townies". Knowing Tom got you a great 'in' with people who'd never talk to an outsider. You went from there to Fielding, an enclosed world of jargon and nicknames and breeding and that story remains unpublished for now.

Highland is your follow-up. There'll be Lawndale after. Some of it will stay for the book you're writing, a plus-one of the Stone articles. Three Americas. You wanted Life's Lottery but a British sci-fi writer got there first. This won't pay much of your student loans off but it's necessary work. And it's work that pays you to be blunt, cynical, and unpleasant. You are living the dream.

There's a side article to write about the gangs you knew. You tracked down Leroy's old lieutenant Jax, now working a used car lot and growing haunted when he talks about his past. Todd is still in jail for murder and will boast about what he did. A few others will talk, a few cops, some hangers-on (Gina let it all come out one day). You even found Beavis, still working Burger World, revealing stuff you'd never think he'd know, cackling about how "cool" some of it was, still denying Todd could have killed Butt-head.

Earl was on parole. You didn't ask if he was still working for the old mob or really was just a handyman. Either way, he seemed content and was glad you were too.

While the two of you walk through Highland, bouncing between the story and school days, Earl points to the call centre: "That's where Leroy is. Everyone says he ran to Mexico but the dumb bastard crossed the old mob."

Your heart beats. "Thank you, anonymous source."

"We used to think he was a big shit."

When you write the story up and mention the anecdote, you feel a sense of closure you never realised you hungered for.

And then you move on to the book, and the next story, AND SO ON.


	71. Chapter 71

[71]

Bad news – you just can't keep the relationship going. It's not just the distance, it's the rapidly diverging worlds and lack of common ground. You're the one who calls time and you never talk to Tom again.

That kills your mood for a few weeks but you recover, knuckle down, and emerge from Raft with a high-scoring degree and rapidly get a job as science correspondent for various newspapers. Going freelance seemed smart at the time and becomes a lot more difficult as time goes on, as budgets bite at your employers, as new writers and new sources compete with you. Still, you know this is the world you wanted in on.

One day you look up and realise you've got less financial security than your parents and, worse, Quinn. Is that a win or a lose? On the other hand, you do have a comfortable marriage to a good man and your parents divorced, and you like to think you're having more fun than Quinn. So you just deal with the rent issues.

AND SO ON


	72. Chapter 72

[72]

You do not feel comfortable and Tom stops it.

The relationship lasts a bit longer but after your encounter with the box, when you rush to Jane rather than the Cove, you realise something's gone. It's just too weird now. The event makes it too obvious you two don't have enough in common to stay together.

Eventually, you will open up to people in that way – you even realise you're bisexual and that's a weird experience – and when you graduate, you have a moderately successful career writing horror for young adults. Books about emotional cripples and confinement and isolation.

You can quit your day job when a studio thinks there's Twilight money to be had and you get a film deal. It's a lucrative film deal and your mother's firm makes it more lucrative still, and even though _You Don't Belong Here_ bombs you still got paid. You'll be writing until you finally GO TO 0.

AND SO ON


	73. Chapter 73

[73]

"Otherwise, my advice is: stand firm for what you believe in, until and unless logic and experience prove you wrong; remember, when the emperor looks naked, the emperor is naked; the truth and a lie are not "sort of the same thing"; and there's no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can't be improved with pizza. Thank you."

You're going to graduate, find and lose a boyfriend, move to New York with Jane nearby in SoHo, and end up as a writer on a late-night talk show. The _only_ female writer in 2017 of all years. I wouldn't expect you to stay there very long when you've got the rep to move on…

Good work. You made good decisions and were lucky. You still have problems and frustrations in life but compared to most people, you won the lottery. Not the jackpot but a nice comfortable sum.

Deep down, in your forties, you'll wonder: how much of this is just a roll of the dice? Could things have been different? You can always GO BACK TO THE START to try again, if you think you can do better, if this isn't enough. Otherwise, be happy with what you got.

AND SO ON.


	74. Chapter 1?

[1]

President Bobby Kennedy was just as willing to use corruption and shady overseas work as his brother and Johnson, but like his brother he's handsome and charismatic so it's years before anyone notices – and few care by then. His term is forever portrayed as a grand party with highs and lows, "Weekend at Bobby's". The "southern strategy" had not just failed but seemed a liability (certain people's reactions to Kennedy's racial justice policies are causing Alabama to burn), so the Republicans target the growing deficit while keeping the 'nice things' by picking Nelson Rockefeller. He's seen as a calm, steady hand keeping a wobbly America together in the turbulent 70s. Jimmy Carter is the man for the 80s, gradually and patiently seeing the end of the Cold War, before giving way to the formidable Hilary Rodham who sets out the new order clinically and professionally (much to China's irritation).

All of this leaves enough people disgruntled that Ross Perot takes the Republicans to victory in 1992 on a platform of decency, reaffirming morals, and not letting other countries direct America (other countries find this claim _hilarious_). The culture war erupts, with MTV especially being on the front lines. A whole generation are radicalised towards the leftier brand of libertarianism. They want their right to party. This has a result only America would have, as George W Bush – wealthy son of a former CIA chief – schmoozes his way to the Democrat candidacy in 1996 off the back of an aww-shucks folksy nature that outfolks Perot.

Look, no country has it great_ forever_.

Helen and Jake Morgendorffer are firmly in the counter-culture which then just became the culture, up until you're born in 1977 when they're still bumming around. You're already moderately lucky in life's lottery: you're a white person living in a relatively stable economic power, untouched by war or plague (HIV almost tore through your country's cities but it's been ground to a halt by the time you're seven), and your childhood will be a time when walls come down and bombs go away. Your parents will eventually settle near a town called Lawndale, at Dega Street; it's a low-crime safe area with moderately okay schools and good job prospects.

You've not got the best numbers, I'm sorry to say. Your parents are the lower end of middle class so you're at risk from various financial winds, especially as Lawndale becomes a more expensive place to live. You live to see a female President in your childhood, which is good, but then see her defeated by a total bastard in your teens, which is not; call that a 3 on the dice. You have to live through Perot as a teenager and then Bush as a new adult, so you get it from both ends – a sense will develop for many of your generation that the best years are behind you, which may or may not be accurate depending on how the cards play out.

You have a friend in Trent Lane and his grumpier older sister Penny, with an honourary little sister in Janey. How well that turns out for you long-term is all on the cards. One of these friends is leading you to music, one to left-libertarian activism, either or both or none could succeed and who am I to tell you which is best? Make it to high school in Lawndale and it'll be run by a woman called Janet Barch, who is under great stress and has a husband who is likely to walk; not the best odds. But the colleges are affordable with an abundance of scholarships if you can jump the right hoops, and you will grow up knowing you've got a good shot there.

Shuffle the cards…


End file.
